Mohali, Feb. 19 -- A local court has sentenced two persons to life imprisonment for the murder of a Mohali resident whose body was dumped in the Bhakra Canal in 2021. The court also imposed a fine of Rs.2.8 lakh and ordered Rs.2.5 lakh as compensation for the victim's family. The convicts, Pankaj Sharma and Daljit Kaur, were found guilty of murdering the victim over personal and business-related disputes that involved alleged blackmail and an illicit relationship. According to the prosecution, on February 13, 2021, the police received information about a body floating in the Bhakra Canal under Pasiana police station in Patiala district. The deceased was later identified as Sunil Kumar, a resident of Mataur village in Mohali. A missing person report had been registered at Mataur police station on February 12 after he had failed to return home. During the course of the investigation, Kumar's car was found abandoned near the Kajoli flyover close to Morinda. His body was subsequently recovered from the canal in the presence of his legal heirs and shifted to Civil Hospital, Phase 6, Mohali, for postmortem examination. The prosecution established that on February 10, 2021, the accused had called Kumar to Kaur's residence. There, they allegedly made the victim consume liquor and confronted him over accusations of blackmail. The court was informed that the accused assaulted Kumar, struck his head with a wooden "dhapli", taped his face, and strangled him to death. The duo later transported the body in a car and disposed of it in the Bhakra Canal. Kumar's vehicle was parked near a bridge to mislead investigators. During the investigation, police recovered a written apology note, the wooden "dhapli", and a roll of tape based on disclosure statements made by the accused. The motive, as stated by the prosecution during interrogation by the police, was that Kumar had allegedly been blackmailing Sharma with photographs of himself and Kaur. The court was further informed that Sharma and Kumar had an altercation over the phone on February 9, a day before the murder over the issue, which subsequently led to the crime. At the sentencing stage, both convicts pleaded for leniency, claiming they were the sole breadwinners of theirfamilies and had dependent children. The prosecution, however, opposed the plea of the duo and sought the maximum punishment. Observing that life imprisonment is the minimum sentence prescribed under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and that the case did not fall within the "rarest of rare" category warranting the death penalty, the court awarded life imprisonment to both convicts along with a fine of Rs.1.4 lakh each and further directed that Rs.2.5 lakh from the fine amount be paid to the deceased's family as compensation....